On Monday, the 12th of January 2015, when I was in my office, writing, my was parked on the street in front of my house and it was struck by a neighbor’s car.

The neighbor in question was a young mother with her infant daughter in the car. She told me that she had turned in her seat to check on the child, lost control of her car, and hit mine.

She was hysterical. I helped her to get the child out of the car and into my house (it was under freezing outside) made her a cup of tea, called the police to get a report number, and helped her sort out her information.

As it happened, she was driving legally, on a valid driver’s licence, in a vehicle that was registered to her and fully insured. None of those things are a given in this town.

For the last three days I have been dealing with the situation. It’s been a nightmare. I don’t blame the other driver at all–she made an error in judgement, and she took full responsibility for her actions. She came to me after the accident, found which house was mine and told me what she had done. (Granted, her car wasn’t drivable, but I don’t believe that she would have driven off if she could.)

The insurance company, however, has not been at all helpful. They promised to get me a rental car, but then couldn’t arrange it. The said that they would pay to have my car taken to my mechanic, but then towed it to a shop on the other side of the county. Which meant then that I and my roommate both had to take a half day off work to go up and get my personal items out of the car.

They decided to total out the car. I was not given the option to buy the car back from them and I was not given a rundown of the damage, the estimated cost of repairs, and the rationale for deciding it wasn’t fixable. I was just told how much they would pay me, and that was it.

The adjuster wasn’t available when we went up to get my things and the plates from the car. Just as well–I would not have been a polite customer.

After numerous calls to numerous numbers, I have decided that the best way to deal with the situation is to mail the title to their claim center in Georgia and wait for them to mail me back a check. It means waiting longer for the settlement money, but it’s worth it to not have to see or speak with any of their employees.

This car meant a lot to me. My sister gave it to me in early summer, and it was the newest and best car I have ever owned.

36 Responses to Heartsick

As already stated, that seriously sucks and I’m so sorry you have to deal with all this rubbish. Suggestion: once this is all sorted out, get a new insurance company. The one you have now is clearly useless.

It is usually not the agent but the adjuster that treat people poorly. And I get that they have a job to save the company money but they also have a job to take care of their customers. If only the agents were also the adjusters.

For me it’s mostly been the claims agents. For one thing, you never talk to the same one twice, and so you have to explain the whole situation every time, and then they have to put you on hold to try to find someone who can answer a question.

No company that offered to pick up customers in my area had cars available, and I had no way to get to something farther away to get a car. I was told by one operator that they offered $25 a day for people in lieu of a rental car, but none of the other operators had ever heard of it.

This is one of the reasons I don’t totally miss doing mostly road traffic incident law: dealing with people whose insurer had sat on it to the point it reached lawyers, every single day was a little sad-making.

In my experience, many insurers work entirely on a pay-to-get-rid-of-you basis, so they only look at files when someone calls/writes about them.

Potentially the biggest reason they get away with it so often (as seems to be the case with your accident) is in many cases the person who is expecting them to do something isn’t the person who is paying the premiums; own-client case handling is often much more efficient.

Oh, no. What a terrible thing. I’m so sorry, and even sorrier than it’s cost you so much hassle and trouble. I’m glad the other driver and her child are okay, and that nobody was injured, but still. This sucks, and I sympathise. I hope the insurance end of things works out as well as it possibly can, and I wish you better luck in the future.

My condolances. Dealing with insurance companies isn’t fun or easy under the best of circumstances, and given many of their policies and attitudes, it hardly ever qualifies for that appelation. One thing you might look into (if you haven’t already) is if your insurance company has any coverage regarding accidents that are technically the area of the other party’s insurance; some companies and policies have additional benefits (usually at least car rentals, but occasionally other service) above and beyond what may be covered by the other insurance, regardless of the circumstances. I know Progressive and Triple A do, at least (as I was required to carry them on some of my vehicles due to lease or financing terms.) Can’t hurt to ask, anyway, unless you’re just completely over the situation, which would be pefectly understandable.